Rumor: The HTC Edge might be the world’s first Quad-core phone

Just when you thought it was safe to buy a dual-core Android phone, rumors of an upcoming quad-core phone surface. Pocketnow has some information about a yet unannounced HTC device that is rumored to be powered by an Nvidia quad-core processor. The Tegra 3 powered phone is being called the HTC Edge, and as of right now is expected to be released in the first half of 2012.

Besides the four 1.5GHz cores under the hood, the Edge has some pretty impressive stats. Most noticeably would be the massive 4.7 inch screen with 720p HD resolution. The camera is a backlit 8-megapixel sensor with f/2.2 lens. It is also rumored that the Edge will have 1GB of ram, and 32GB of storage built in. There was no information about if the Edge would come in an LTE flavor, but there was information about a 21Mbps HSDPA radio. All of this will be packed into a 10-millimeter-thick package.

One bit of information that was unclear is what operating system will be loaded onto the device. With HTC recently announcing several current model devices getting Ice Cream Sandwich in early 2012, we are hoping that the Edge will come preloaded with the frozen treat. The fact that the device pictured above has the physical Android buttons makes us worried that it will come with Gingerbread (which requires buttons), and be updated at a later date.

While we have seen tablets like the Asus Transformer Prime have quad-core processor, this is the first phone we’ve seen with a quad-core processor. Mobile technology is improving at an amazing rate, the first dual-core devices were announced earlier this year, and we are already being teased with quad-core phones. Now everyone who was thinking about upgrading to the Galaxy Nexus might be a little worried when signing that two year contract.